Should the Christian church be more supportive of mental illness?
Recently there has been an increasing amount of suicides by prominent pastor, and I’m wondering if the church has gotten the whole idea of suicide being “ the worst sin” or “going straight to hell” if you committed such an act or has the church just gotten the whole mental health problem wrong?
I hope this does not trigger anyone’s mental health, please reach out if you do feel trigger.
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Re: The Christian Church and mental illness
by jimwalton » Wed Sep 11, 2019 4:46 pm
For a LONG time, the Christian Church has been involved in helping people cope with mental illness. Frankly, I haven't heard anything about any prominent pastor committing suicide, let alone a rash of them. If you have some source for this information, I would honestly be glad to see it. I haven't heard anything about this.
As to suicide and hell, there aren't any verses in the Bible that even talk about suicide. Some people in the Bible committed suicide (Possibly King Saul, definitely Judas), but there are no teachings in the Bible about it.
Obviously, suicide is taking a life, and the Bible does say that it's wrong to willfully take a life by violence (Ex. 20.13), but it doesn't speak specifically about suicide. We can assume this commandment would include suicide, however.
Some people consider that the Roman Catholic Church teaches that anyone who suicides goes directly to hell. While some Catholics agree to that, others don't. But what we definitely do NOT find is the Bible teaching that. The Bible never says that people who kill themselves go to hell, even though the last act they committed on this earth was murder. The teaching of Scripture is clear that your final destiny is not dependent on an action like that, but the state of your soul (with a sin nature or the nature of Jesus) at the end of life.
As to suicide and hell, there aren't any verses in the Bible that even talk about suicide. Some people in the Bible committed suicide (Possibly King Saul, definitely Judas), but there are no teachings in the Bible about it.
Obviously, suicide is taking a life, and the Bible does say that it's wrong to willfully take a life by violence (Ex. 20.13), but it doesn't speak specifically about suicide. We can assume this commandment would include suicide, however.
Some people consider that the Roman Catholic Church teaches that anyone who suicides goes directly to hell. While some Catholics agree to that, others don't. But what we definitely do NOT find is the Bible teaching that. The Bible never says that people who kill themselves go to hell, even though the last act they committed on this earth was murder. The teaching of Scripture is clear that your final destiny is not dependent on an action like that, but the state of your soul (with a sin nature or the nature of Jesus) at the end of life.
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Re: The Christian Church and mental illness
by Batman » Thu Sep 12, 2019 9:37 am
- Batman
Re: The Christian Church and mental illness
by jimwalton » Thu Oct 31, 2019 6:23 pm
OK, thanks. I didn't know about that. Thank you for the source.
Last bumped by Anonymous on Thu Oct 31, 2019 6:23 pm.
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